So far the whole “writing is my
passion so I'm going to make time for it” idea is going.
Yesterday, I revamped my email, twitter, and blog to reflect this new
project. The email I pulled was a less cluttered rarely used one
originally set up for Mary Kay. I should have known when I was so
desperate Mary Kay seemed plausible for escape that it was time to
change venue. I'm so used to just surrendering. Regarding career, I
say to myself: “This is it. This is all there is. You will never
be happy at work, you will never be able to combine the esoteric
frivolous things you love with any concept of something that makes
money.” I've tried to be stern with myself saying being sad about
something like that is what teenagers do. I'm too old to not face
the truth and I've known that I don't fit with the more prolific
culture for over a decade—it's too long to still be in mourning. I
don't know why it's taken me this long to try something new and
unconventional. Maybe if instead of being sad and frustrated, I'd
been brave and stubborn—but being stubborn has never yielded
positive results. There is no reason to think being stubborn will be
successful in this venture either. I feel so crappy and miserable
about my job prospects and what I'll be doing for the next fifty
years of my life there's nothing left to lose in trying something
else. If being stubborn is another failure, there will literal be no
harm done.
I wrote one and a half blog posts
yesterday. Neither is up yet. I am already struggling with my first
pledge to keep my writing 500-1000 words. My first “completed
post” stands at 1134 words, and that's after significant editing.
It's been a long time since I wrote for anyone, and brevity was never
my forte. Needless to say, I spend more time editing than writing.
Words might fall out, but it's hard to cull them once they've been
born.
Both my works are bitter and angry.
One of them is on a heavy and highly controversial subject. I am
going to post, I just didn't want to start with material that is
possibly off putting. Let the readers get to know me a little and
see me as human with a range, and then “bam” depth has been
added.
There is definitely a huge market of
hospitality staff that share in my secret knowledge. I've decided
need to build a more diverse base than a bunch of very sensitive
misanthropes who put on the fake pep rally face for work and come
home to find some kind of cathartic release. Working in the service
industry is bleak. Not just because the public treats you badly, but
because everyone around you is at least as hopeless sometimes more so
than you are. All these good people who have skills and so much
inherent worth have been discarded. It hurts me to see people so
young already defeated.
The fiancee came home and 6:30pm to
find me writing. That's about six solid hours. He very reasonably
wanted me to cook. He offered to make instant pizza and let me work,
but I refused. We have meat in the fridge that is going to go out of
date if not used and I need the discipline. It's hard when I'm in a
groove to leave the work, and I know that if I try to come back at
7:30, 8pm the parts of my brain that pump out the magic will be fried
for the day. Cooking in some ways is a death sentence to my creative
career.
However, not pulling my weight in house
work and in my partnership with my fiancee is a death sentence to our
life together. It can be hard when I'm so unhappy with one part of
my life to remember how good another part it. I feel disjointed
laughing and teasing him. Poking fun about this person or that
person, playing with our dog, discussing which movies if any we'd
like to see and carefully avoiding work and fiancees.
He loves his job and makes so much
money. I live a magically blessed life I've done very little to
deserve. I have tried so many and failed at so many different career
things just since we've been together. He's always been so tolerant
and loving about it. I can't keep abusing him like this. Failure
after failure, new attempt, and another—hoping he'll still
understand.
He did the whole career success thing
on the first try. He has a skill in technology that will start a
bidding war to have him. I admit my fiancee doesn't have a creative
bone in his body, he can't tell where a plot is going to save his
life, he doesn't care a second glance at art or good landscaping, and
he lacks even the smallest drop of empathy. But he's an amazing
worker: dedicated, smart, thoughtful, and full of effort. He's very
ambitious and demands high standards in himself and those around him.
He loves me very much somehow and I really don't know how since all
of my most endearing qualities are ones that he presumably doesn't
care about and rarely recognizes.
After dinner I worked on compiling my
already written poems. I think I have enough of high enough caliber
that I can put them together for an e-book. I do not expect this to
be an huge money maker, but I love my work and other people love it
too. I honestly just want a platform to put that work out into the
world. Also, rereading my old poems helps to remind me of what I've
done, where my writing was, and what I can do.
I also have been able to go back
through my life via the poetic works and look at past relationships.
I have all this beautiful body of work about an abusive relationship
I had and about a man I thought would be the love of my life.
Reading those works reminds me of why I had such a hard time moving
on, because I can remember how true they are.
It occurred to me while reading and
making the occasional edit, that part of me felt unfaithful to my
current fiancee reading the work. Like admitting I had these
thoughts and feelings for someone else and knowing I don't feel that
way for him was some kind of betrayal. I was struck by this
desperate need to write poetry about our relationship and our life
and was hit with a block. I haven't written a single poem in three
years. There is very little in my life I would consider fodder for
my poetic process. I always thought the kind of relationships I had
with men would be inherently poetic. I don't think my relationship
with the fiancee has an ounce of poetry to it. We point out where
the other lacks and help them, but we never are intentionally cruel.
We never go back and forth in rounds that could be stanzas.
The bottom line is that I write poems
to release emotion either anger, joy, or hurt. When he hurts me I
tell him. When I'm happy I want to share it with him. When I'm mad
at him I confront him, even when it's stupid or little. We hash it
out. When I'm not satisfied, which is rare, I go for a walk. It
burns calories, anger, and lets him KNOW we still need to talk to
work things out but only after I have space to think and maybe he has
space to think. Maybe because I'm not in college and I work 40hrs a
week, I don't have the excess time or energy to produce emotion like
I did. Maybe I leak it all out on him and none left to write on.
That's all my progress for today. I'm still reading advice on how to best freelance write from home, with some mixed advice. I'm browsing some social media options and search engine stuff. I feel a bit overwhelmed, but I feel the most important thing through it all is write and focus on my ideas. I can build portfolios and how to make offers and all the details from there, so long as I have the writing.
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